Blood and Capitalism
by Joseph1
Summary: An exploration of the dark side of capitalism set in the bustling city of Suzail in the Kingdom of Cormyr. The characters are mine, the setting is not. The violence that will come later is what gathered the R rating.
1. Default Chapter

Joseph Morton  
  
  
  
Blood and Capitalism  
  
Welcome gentle reader to the world of Faerun where dangers lurk in clandestine shadows cast by deities and ancient dragons that remain hidden  
  
and plot against their enemies in the secret private places where even eagles fear to fly. Although there are many adventures going on in a simultaneous fashion in this land of mystery and intrigue, our tale will center on the bustling capital of one of the most recognizable municipalities in all of Faerun. Our tale takes us not to monarchs and hoarders of arcane knowledge but to a humble merchant family toiling their wares on the streets of Suzail. At the moment we're hitching a ride on the back of a young red dragon flying down from its mountain perch to snatch its unsuspecting prey on the outskirts of the Stormhorn Mountains (Don't worry, she doesn't know we're here). As she snatches her grazing mid-day snack we can hear the faint grinding sound of wooden wheels rolling over a primitive gravel road. Our dragon friend undoubtedly hears it too and flies off, apparently with the preconceived notion that the force trooping down that hill is undoubtedly too much for her to handle on her own so let's leave our glorious red maiden and poke our collective attentions over that hill shall we? There, coming into view there on your right is a considerable sized merchant caravan. Six wagons of wooden construct linked by chains and pulled by tethered horses constantly whipped and spurred by a stumpy lone rider.  
  
It looks undefended doesn't it? It looks like any two-bit hoodlum could slip in and take whatever it is his corrupt heart desires. Look closer dear reader not all is, as it seems. Those cylindrical holes along the walls of the caravan that are barely perceptible to the eye are none other then arrow slits carved into the walls. That caravan right there; the one without windows or slits, you can't sense it regularly but with a slight dweomer cast by yours truly. Voila as we say in my home kingdom, magical patterns are revealed before the eye! Fantastic is it not? It seems the dread maiden we had flown in on might've had some inside information. Devious creatures are they not? Dragons instincts are regularly quite keen but hers seem sharper then the regular hustle and bustle of her brethren for she knew perhaps from the scent of the magic in the air that this group would indeed prove too much for her.  
  
Let's slip around the defenses and through the door to see what they're carrying shall we? We're now standing in the archway of a diminutive space where we can clearly see six wooden crates bearing the purple dragon standard of the Kingdom of Cormyr. We won't need to open them for yours truly to tell you what exactly is in there for doing so would set off all kinds of magical nastiness that would definitely ruin our day. Inside of those crates are tusks of ivory originating initially from a beast that roamed from the Underdark that was slain by the berzerker warriors of Rashemen and traded for cloaks during the particularly dreadful winter they experienced last year. Despite the misleading sigil on the front of his merchandise the owner of this fine business-to-be is none other then Naedrun  
  
Medea, a middle aged man who had grown fat on the fruits of his own wealth. A man whose shriveled facial features might have at one time been handsome and although we can be assured that he carries little to any fae heritage within his genes, his ears have a slight point to them that is barely covered by his thinning salt and pepper hair. Naedrun has two sons and a daughter all born to an estranged wife that they left behind in Sembia. They children are currently situated in different rooms due to their constant squabbling. Oh, it seems the caravan has stopped, the horses are resting and our rider is talking with someone on the road. As we step out (unnoticed as always) from the caravan we can see that our chainmale clad rider is talking to none other then one of the members of the elite order of knights of Cormyr. They're called purple dragons by the way, like the sigil. Beyond the next hill he's telling our rider is the gate of Suzail and surely enough up and over the horizon Suzail does rise above the earth.  
  
So the family has arrived and our story is about to begin. Before I direct our collective perspective to our protagonist I feel it prudent that I introduce him, so let's leave our Sembian merchant friends for a few moments and go high above the capital of Cormyr.  
  
Viewed from overhead at an approximate height of five hundred feet, Suzail stretches out like a badly scrawled pirate map. Obviously the Cormyrians have no taste for the aesthetic. From our height the castle immediately jumps out at us from the center of the city, which is customary for a capital and around it exists the gardens manned and roamed by courtesans and purple dragons alike each protecting their own interests.  
  
Outside the gardens begin the residential area in steely gray, class distinction is readily viewable here. Those with royal favor (or the money to make up the difference) live in finely constructed buildings of three stories or more usually segregated from the commoners by iron bars. Those less fortunate souls to be born of low or poor birth end up in slums consisting of wood and cloth. Beyond that and stretching to the vast city walls our Sembian merchant friends are currently entering through are a myriad collection of shrines, taverns, inns, barracks, stockyards, shipyards and festhalls. The Southernmost quadrant of the city has been selected by the city officials of a thousand generations to be the housing of the royal market of Cormyr, where merchants fight an ongoing economic war for the space to sell their goods. Here we meet the brothers Edwin, Xaun and Bryce and their wealthy father Thaddius Caul as they pack their days wares away into sacks to take home for the evening. Everyday has been an excellent day for the ivory trade since Thaddius cornered the market and secured the uppermost quadrant of the market for his own family to work. He had slowly been working towards running his competitors in the lowermost quadrant out of business with his reasonable prices and masterful craftsmanship. The three boys had much to laugh and play about as good times were certainly upon them. The Caul family had recently been recognized in a speech by the Steel Princess herself for their dutiful service to the crown and sales had been on the steady incline for nearly two months. From our vantage-point we can see the three boys running off in an unconscious pecking order of oldest to youngest towards the royal garden where they'll go about and sit and read or play war and do the things young boys do. Each one of these boys completely unaware of the drastic change that is about to forever change every facet of their lives. 


	2. Sins of the Father

Joseph Morton  
  
  
  
Title: Blood and Capitalism  
  
Chapter Title: Sins of the Father  
  
E-mail: Violet_Hued_Reflection@hotmail.com  
  
The Main Characters: Thaddius Caul and his family.  
  
The Genre: Fantasy  
  
The Story Rating: R  
  
Chapter Summary: Thaddius comes to grips with his crime.  
  
Disclaimer: The recognisable characters appearing in this story are property of TSR: Forgotten Realms, all rights reserved. They are used without permission and for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made by the author for writing this story. No infringement upon nor challenge to the rights of the copyright holders is intended; nor should any be inferred.  
  
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Thaddius sat up in his favorite nagahide chair before the fire and poked loose tobacco into his pipe. The embers in the fireplace held their luminescent glow as he relaxed in his chair and tried to clear his mind. His thoughts invaded his peace.  
  
Thaddius Caul had enjoyed his life the way it was before the Medea family arrived in Suzail. He had been quite proud of his success during the last calendar year. He had successfully gathered enough trust within the community to craft him a respectable financial following. The boost in reputation was nice but it wasn't what completed Thaddius Caul. During the summer months he enjoyed an annual vacation. He was always careful to stay within the political bounds that a citizen of Cormyr would be welcome and last year after he had pawned his children off on their grandmother in Marsember, he had chosen the distant Sembian metropolis of Saerloon for his destination.  
  
He would readily admit that the aesthetic beauty of the gargoyle statues atop the ancient buildings had entranced him. He would equally readily admit he was entranced by the expensive foreign wines he had found in the Saerloon market and only if pressed would he admit to his own lack of foresight upon entering the small tavern in the shadier side of town. There amongst the rats and smell of desperation, he had found lust, cheap wine and dog fighting. It was there that he had placed his bets and it was there that his luck had changed.  
  
He remembered on the first day he had looked across the market into the face of his new competitor, that in a drunken stupor he had bragged the tale of his good fortune to a struggling merchant by the name of Naedrun Medea. It was also there that he had gambled himself into a considerable debt and been violently rustled out of the bar when it was found he could no longer pay his tab. Within twelve hours he had been visited by an associate of the organization known throughout the realms as the Shadow Thieves. The representative claimed that Thaddius owed the guild money concurrent to the results of the dog-fighting game he attended the night previously. When Thaddius had claimed he had no recollection of that, and this was true as he had awakened the next morning with little memory of the occurrences of the previous night, the representative of the Shadow Thieves had Thaddius call for his temporary manservant. Thaddius had hired his manservant the day his vacation had begun and neglected to form any real attachment with the man in the three weeks since then. However watching this monster in the black executioners mask go to work with his dagger still shocked and abhorred Thaddius in all of those places where men keep their most secret fears. The authorities had kept Thaddius busy with questions for the rest of his stay in Sembia and he had successfully evaded any mention of the elusive guild of monsters playing at men. They had not failed to inform him that if the authorities were to find out he would meet a gruesome demise shortly after he had watched his three sons suffer a heinous violation. He was also informed that he had two months in which to make up the monies owed to the guild or else there would be further retribution. That was a month ago.  
  
"Father." It was the voice of his youngest son Bryce, effeminate in the pre-pubescent years.  
  
"Yes, my boy?" Thaddius responded without looking at him.  
  
"It's two hours after dinner, you wished us to seek you?"  
  
Thaddius inspected the grandfather clock standing in the space between bookshelves and was surprised to find he had been dozing for two hours.  
  
"Yes, come in. Sit before me."  
  
Young fair-haired Bryce came in and sat down cross-legged on the floor facing his father. He was wearing the gray woolen shirt with the silver buttons that Thaddius had bought him for his birthday last year. Thaddius frowned when he noted his two elder boys were not in attendance.  
  
"Bry. Where are your brothers?"  
  
"Edwin said he's gonna be late and Xaun ain't comin'."  
  
"Why isn't Xaun coming?"  
  
Bryce shrugged and said he didn't know and Thaddius let it go at that. He would tell Xaun later. Thaddius smoked his pipe after asking his youngest son to tell him about his day. He was not surprised to find his mind beginning to wander.  
  
When his boys came of age he was wise enough to allow them free will to choose whatever career they desired. He had withheld his silent hopes that one of his boys would choose to carry on the family trade and was overjoyed when Bryce, his youngest had opted for that choice, he hoped that Bryce would feel that way in a few years. The other two boys were separated to pursue their individual careers under his funding. Xaun, his eldest at seventeen had opted for a life of discipline in the military and had returned at nineteen a defeated bitter wreck of the boy he once was. The Cormyrian military had dug their claws into him and he had proved too unyielding in his independence and was discharged into the care of his father. Since then he was a scarce presence around the Caul estate, roaming in and out of the house barely uttering a word, wandering about in delusional grief over his lost childhood. He was distant with his father often to the point of being flippant and Thaddius was relieved when he moved out in a huff one night after a slight tiff. Of his two grown boys, the only son that managed to find some resemblance of success in the hard trials of the young adult was his middle son Edwin, who had chosen a scholarly pursuit as his career. Thaddius had never thought of himself as intelligent, he had his gifts it was true. In the financial court of coin and collection he was regarded as a genius but he had no real intellectual standing on anything not concerning facts and figures. Edwin was different. From a very young age he had shown aptitude with both the mathematical formulas his father had taught him and the abstract concepts he picked up in books. At the age of eight he had read and formulated thesis and opinions on books by such noted authors as Elminster of Shadowdale and Khelben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun. There had been times in his scholastic career where confused, jealous teachers who felt disrespected by the inquisitive and sometimes sarcastic young boy had sent him home. It was little secret that Thaddius Caul was proud of all three of his boys. That's why he couldn't bear to tell them that his luck had run out.  
  
Bryce was busy regaling his father on the merits of this week's hero Drizzt the Dark Elf of Icewindale when Edwin entered. He was growing into what Thaddius's father would've undoubtedly called 'a strapping young lad.' Like his dear deceased mother and youngest brother, he was fair-haired and clinging snug to his body was the pleated white robe he wore to the academy. His face was incredibly pale and Thaddius thought he looked ill.  
  
"My apologies for my late arrival, father. I was regrettably detained by the quartermaster to assist him with his taxes."  
  
Thaddius waved it off without a word and ushered him to sit beside his brother who had grown suitably quiet.  
  
"Have you seen your brother?"  
  
Thaddius asked Edwin who shook his head with a grimace at the mention of his brother. The animosity between Edwin and Xaun was little secret. Once when Edwin was twelve he had asked his son why he and Xaun fought like they did and Edwin had responded that his brother was 'a savage and bully below contempt.' Thaddius had laughed at that in private and asked his eldest son the same question with the forthcoming response being that his brother was a 'pretentious twit who deserved to be slapped.' Regardless, when Xaun returned from the military Edwin had done well for himself to say nothing and avoid his older brother who was clearly not himself.  
  
Thaddius looked up to the heavens for inspiration and divine strength to fill him so he could tell his sons of his failure. He released a sigh and looked to the face of each of his present boys who were now suitably distressed.  
  
"You can probably tell from my reaction that I have bad news."  
  
Edwin and Bryce were fidgeting on the carpet, all eyes on their father.  
  
"Things are going to be tough around here for the next little while."  
  
"What do you mean? Tough." Edwin asked.  
  
"Tough. Difficult. It appears we didn't do as well last year as we expected. The royal coffers required to be filled with our tax monies and our expenses paid to the various shrines have been exemplary this year due to our exposure."  
  
A stab of hot iron pierced Thaddiuses heart, he had never lied to his children before.  
  
"What's essem-plary?" Asked Bryce.  
  
"Exemplary, meaning we had to pay more because of our recognized standing before the Queen." Edwin explained.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"That's not all," Thaddius continued, "our newest competition the Medea family is reputedly using the same technique we used to gather our fortune in the first place. Our competition just can't be run into a different trade like we did the Leedses and the Millikers."  
  
"So, y'havin' hard times are y'father?"  
  
It was the sarcasm rich, near baritone of his oldest son Xaun behind him having arrived and lingered in the doorway.  
  
"How long have you been there, son?" Thaddius asked his eldest son without turning around to look at him.  
  
"Long enough."  
  
He casually strolled over to lean by the fireplace and crossed his arms. He was dressed in what appeared to be two strips of black leather sewn together with sewing string to create a homemade leather vest. His hair was black and messy like his fathers, his face startling and handsome. Thaddius secretly admired his son for his boldness. Edwin fixed Xaun with a disapproving glare and Bryce simply smiled up at him.  
  
"Fair enough. Then you've heard everything thus far?"  
  
Xaun nodded and crossed his arms.  
  
"How is this new change of events going to effect my schooling, father?"  
  
The apprehension in Edwin's voice caused Thaddius to cringe.  
  
"We'll have to see about that Eddie."  
  
"Don't call me Eddie." Edwin retorted sharply.  
  
"What 'bout my chances at getting a pony, you said I could have a pony and a real short-sword from a real warrior, like Drizzt."  
  
"I never said anything about a short-sword, Bry and we'll have to wait and see about the..."  
  
Thaddius was cut off as his eldest son began to leave. Twisting in his seat to look at his son, he asked.  
  
"Xaun. Where are you going?"  
  
"This doesn't include me. This is your problem, not mine."  
  
Edwin leapt to his feet. "You shit! This is as much your problem as it is ours," but Xaun had left. Thaddius let him go.  
  
"Father, why do you put up with him?" Edwin asked his father. Thaddius couldn't give an answer, as he had none to give.  
  
"What do you suppose we do, father?"  
  
He had anticipated this question.  
  
"We're going to have to cut down on some things around here until the Medea's fold, remember how life was when we first got here Eddie? That's how things are going to be now"  
  
Seven years ago Thaddius Caul had inherited the ivory cutting trade from his own father and along with the trade itself came the tricks of the trade, a specific measure of cut that had been his families most securely guarded secret for generations. Penelope, his wife of nearly a decade, had assisted him in all ventures and had been taught the Caul family technique shortly after the birth of their first child. Edwin remembered those times well, he had been ten years old and helping out at the local soup kitchen for a measly five copper a month while his father worked long hours in the market and Xaun did nothing extraordinary to assist his family. That had been the transition period between the poorhouse and affluence and if it hadn't been for Edwin's keen political nose they likely would've never dragged themselves out of the poorhouse. Edwin had suggested to his father that he secretly give a percentage of his earnings in excess of his taxes directly to the regime of the Steel Princess, Alusair and the infant King Azoun. This had eventually paid off as he suspected it would. Alusair in one of her rousing speeches to the masses had mentioned the name of his family as being "friends of Azoun" and the respective payoff had been considerable as profits over the next few months hit the stratosphere and continued to climb. Now everything he'd brought to his father was threatening to crumble as unseen debts rose to push them down. Edwin knew that with the new lifestyle they all lead he couldn't go back. He had duties to perform at the university where he was being educated and he didn't want to admit that he too had kept a secret from his father. Shortly after his arrival at the University one of his professors had taken an interest in him and had asked him if he would be interested in a little extra curricular study. From there Edwin had begun his tutelage in the arcane arts of magic and he knew that if his father ever found out nothing would ever be the same between them. He knew that his father secretly distrusted those few people that claim to know the workings of magic and he also knew the distrust to be secretly akin to jealousy. It was something his mentor; Valand Peiroa the Half-Elven wizard had done well to teach him. He called it the psychology of the non-practitioner. Too protect his own interests and the interests of his family, Edwin needed to do something and fast.  
  
"I understand, father."  
  
For the next few hours Thaddius seemed content to rock gently before the fire and absently watch the shadow of his youngest son kick and slash at imaginary villains against the wall. He was worried about his children and rightfully so as he had witnessed firsthand what the Shadow Thieves were capable of doing. What was worse was that since the Medea's had moved into town his profits had been on a steady decline with no foreseeable signs of turnabout.  
  
"Yes, Daddy?" His youngest son asked, having caught his father eyeing him and stopping his play accordingly.  
  
"Nothing Bry, go ahead."  
  
Thaddius felt a heavy weight clamp over his heart as he looked into the glowing eyes of his youngest son and bathed in the unconditional love of his beautiful smile. Yes he had to do something fast. 


End file.
